Applicants claim the benefits under 35 U.S.C. 119 of Japanese Patent Application 11-054043, which was filed Mar. 2, 1999. This Japanese Patent Application and its translation are incorporated into this Application by reference.
This invention pertains to computer systems and, more particularly, to a network computer system in which the format of the keyboard scan code data at a managing terminal is converted to another format compatible with the keyboard scan code data at a managed terminal.
A remote control technology, which provides the means for a specific workstation to control other workstation across the network is always supported in a system management product as a help desk function, which is one of the most important functions provided for system management.
By using this function, the network system administrator can, from his or her own workstation, effectively control another workstation connected to the network so as to:
monitor the display screen of the managed workstation;
remotely control the keyboard of the managed workstation; and
remotely control the mouse of the managed workstation.
The network system administrator also can perform the help desk function, troubleshooting activities, and remote maintenance for a user at a distant workstation. At present, the main system management products which support such remote control systems are the Tivoli TME10, the IBM NetFinity, the Intel LANDesk, and the Microsoft System Management Server.
In a conventional remote control system, when implementing a remote control process for a keyboard, the scan codes produced by the keyboard at a managing workstation are transmitted unchanged to a managed workstation. A problem arises, however, when physical types or logical layouts of the keyboards at the workstations are different, and one or some of the scan codes produced by the two keyboards for specific characters differ. In this case, certain keys can not be used, or characters other than those entered at the managing workstation are input for an application processed at the managed workstation. This conventional problem will be encountered frequently in countries, especially Japan and South Korea, wherein Chinese characters (kanji) are used. Since in such countries many different kanji keyboards are available (in Japan especially, a number of different types of kanji keyboards are used, including those designed for the NEC PC98), in these nations it is highly probable that the keyboard types in use at a managing workstation and at a managed workstation will differ.
SystemView for OS/2, which is system management software by IBM, and Netfinity Server, which is the succeeding product, resolve the above problem by identifying the keyboard types, the code pages and the country codes in use at the managing and the managed workstations, and then converting the scan codes produced by the keyboard at the managing workstation into scan code of the keyboard at the managed workstation. That is, as is shown in FIG. 5, scan code group A for keyboard A at a managing workstation 51 is converted into scan code group B for keyboard B at a managed workstation 52, and the obtained scan code group B is transmitted by the managing workstation 51 to the managed workstation 52.
This method can be used to resolve the above conventional problem; however, the following problems remain:
one-to-one conversion of the keyboard A scan code group A to the keyboard B scan code group B is performed;
program logic is used for conversion; and
{N(N-1)/2} conversion logic sets are required to support N keyboard layouts (see FIG. 6).
In Europe, although essentially the same keyboard hardware is used, keyboards having different key tops, i.e., keyboards having different logical layouts, are used in almost every country, and the same problem as is described above has arisen. For example, if a managing workstation in France uses a French keyboard, and a managed workstation in Italy uses an Italian keyboard, which means the logical layouts of the two keyboards differ, for a specific character the two keyboards have a different scan code. In this case, some keys can not be used, or a character produced for an application at the managed workstation is not the character that is entered at the managing workstation.
The purpose of this invention is to provide a remote control operation using a keyboard so that the conversion of scan codes between different keyboards can be effectively supported.
To achieve the above object, according to the present invention, for a remote control technology which enables a managing terminal to control a managed terminal in a network environment, a method for the conversion of keyboard scan code data between different types of keyboards is employed when physical types or logical layouts of the keyboards at a managing workstation and at a managed workstation differ. In this case, first, real scan code generated by the keyboard of the managing workstation is converted into virtual scan code, and then, the virtual scan code is converted into real scan code of the keyboard of the managed workstation.
In this invention, a virtual scan code concept is introduced. Real scan code generated by the keyboard of a managing workstation is first converted into virtual scan code, and then, the virtual scan code is converted into real scan code of the keyboard of the managed workstation. Since real scan code is temporarily converted into virtual scan code, which constitutes a unique intermediate code, an increase in the number of conversion logic sets, which increases as the number of supported keyboard types increases, can be minimized.
As a preferable style of this invention, a conversion table is used for the conversion between real scan code and virtual scan code. In this case, N keyboard types can be supported by using N conversion tables. Using a conversion table, a new keyboard type can be supported without changing the program logic. As another preferable style, a conversion table is constituted by an index portion and a conversion table portion. In this case, processing speed can be increased when implementing this invention.